


Rubbed The Right Way

by Lenore



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Humor, M/M, Massage, Romance, Stalking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-30
Updated: 2012-03-30
Packaged: 2017-11-02 18:22:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,535
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/371967
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lenore/pseuds/Lenore
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Arthur is a massage therapist. Eames is his number one client—okay, stalker.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rubbed The Right Way

**Author's Note:**

> If I'd thought to warn that Eames expresses his infatuation for Arthur by sexually harassing him on the job when I started this story, my first foray into writing for a kink meme would have gone much more smoothly. So, you know, be warned.

"You look like shit," Arthur observed from his spot on the other side of the breakroom, hoping the germs wouldn't travel that far.

"Fuck off." Nash lay listlessly sprawled on the lone sofa, his pallor a sicklier shade than the foam green of the upholstery. He'd been insisting all day that he wasn't coming down with the flu.

Arthur suspected he might actually have the plague. "No one's going to want you touching them," he pointed out, quite reasonably.

"You're just trying to steal my Three O'clock!" Nash insisted, hoarse and miserable.

Arthur snorted. "Please."

He'd heard enough about this infamous Three O'clock to know that this was just about the last person he'd ever want to give a massage, because: 1) Arthur didn't enjoy being sexually harassed; 2) He was a professional who didn't get involved with his clients; and 3) Even if #2 hadn't been true, anyone Nash found attractive would only make Arthur feel like there wasn’t enough Lysol in the world.

 _Charming_ , Arthur had found from unfortunate personal experience, was almost always synonymous with _asshole_.

"Where the hell is everyone? Are you trying to put me out of business?" Dom appeared in the doorway, wild-eyed and frazzled.

He'd always been a little prone to drama, but opening Inception, the spa he'd been planning since his first day in the business, had ratcheted up the crazy to a whole new level. Not that Arthur would consider working for anyone else, of course.

"Nash, your three o'clock is here. Why aren't you—what the fuck?" He made a horrified face. "I thought you said you were feeling better!"

"I am," Nash said weakly, trying to push himself up into a sitting position, only to flop back down feebly.

"Nobody's going to want you touching them," Dom said, and Arthur shot Nash a triumphant smirk, which promptly disappeared when Dom added, "You'll have to take him, Arthur."

"What? I'm not—" Arthur tried to protest, but he was drowned out by Nash's nasal, outraged cry of, "It's a fucking conspiracy!"

Dom ignored them both. "He's in room two. Don't keep him waiting." He promptly disappeared, before Arthur could argue further.

"You're going to steal him away from me," Nash moaned pathetically.

"Don't be so fucking melodramatic," Arthur snapped.

The door to massage room number two stood ajar, and Arthur started in, because in the ordinary course of things an open door signaled: _It's okay, nobody's naked yet._ As he took a step across the threshold, though, it occurred to him that the ordinary course of things might not mean much where Nash's infamous Three O'Clock was concerned. He stopped short, ready to bolt if necessary, but fortunately no clothes had hit the floor yet.

Three O'clock was tallish, broad-shouldered, good-looking if you were into tattoos and porn lips, which Arthur would adamantly insist he wasn't.

"Well, aren't you delicious." The man's gaze flicked up the length of Arthur's body, appreciative and more than a little lewd.

"I'm Arthur," he said, in the cool, professional tone he used with problem clients. Obviously it was going to be important to establish firm boundaries from the beginning.

The man's mouth turned up in an amused smirk, which left Arthur indignant. Professionalism was nothing to be laughed at. "I'm Eames." The man reached for Arthur's hand and held on too long, stroking his thumb insinuatingly over Arthur's skin.

Arthur snatched his hand back, scowling, which just made Eames smirk more gleefully. "Get undressed, lie face down with the sheet over you. I'll be back in a few minutes." He turned on his heel and left, already annoyed, and they hadn't even started yet.

He loitered out in the hallway, waiting longer than usual, because this Eames had "exhibitionist" written all over him. But when he knocked and stepped back inside, Eames had, against all odds, done as he was told, and was safely tucked away beneath the sheet.

"I am capable of following instructions on occasion." Eames smiled up at Arthur, as if he'd read his mind.

"I'm glad to hear that, Mr. Eames," Arthur answered primly, making his dubiousness clear.

Eames smiled with even greater delight. "Oh, you are just _perfect_. How is it we've never met before?"

"Face down, Mr. Eames."

"I'm yours to command, love."

Arthur bit back a request to stop with the pet names. Better just to get to work. This was a one-time thing, and then Arthur would happily hand Eames back over to Nash.

His training had taught him to see bodies in therapeutic terms, as collections of muscle and bone and sinew, and it was in this purely professional capacity that he appreciated the body beneath his hands. He dug his fingers into Eames's shoulders, spreading oil over his skin, the dark curls of ink glistening in the soft light. He'd never seen more elegant deltoids in his life.

Unfortunately, the man attached to them was nothing but a nuisance. Massage was a meditative experience, and most clients went quiet at the first touch. Eames, on the other hand, would not shut up.

"Oh, darling, you're a positive talent. That feels heavenly." He emphasized the point with a low, guttural moan that could have come straight out of porn.

It was going to be a long hour, Arthur could see that already.

"Mm," Eames purred as Arthur kneaded his hands down his back. "Seriously, darling, where have you been all my life?"

"I've worked here for three years," Arthur told him dryly.

"And what were you doing before that?"

"That's none of your business, Mr. Eames."

"Would it also be out of bounds if I asked what your taste in men runs to?"

"Let's just keep this professional."

"So that's a yes to out of bounds?"

"Yes!"

"I'll tell you about myself then, yeah?"

"I'm not a bartender!"

This didn't stop Eames from chattering on about how he'd come to New York to open his own art gallery. Apparently the business didn't take up all that much of his time since he regularly scheduled appointments in the middle of the afternoon.

"Okay, time to turn over," Arthur announced. "I'll hold up the sheet—" Eames moved before Arthur could finish the sentence. He barely managed to get the sheet up in time to avoid getting an eyeful of bare body. Once the sheet was tucked back into place, it was impossible to miss that Eames had found the massage rather stimulating.

"You have quite the effect on me." Eames smirked up at him.

In massage school, they'd covered how to tactfully reassure male clients that there was nothing to be embarrassed about if they became aroused during a massage. Sadly, no one had ever mentioned what to do when a client was positively brazen about it.

Arthur determinedly set to work on Eames's arms, doing his best to ignore everything else. Eames stared up at him, with a sharp expression of interest. Most clients felt too vulnerable in this position to keep their eyes open, and Arthur had never fully appreciated how much easier it was too work without such close scrutiny.

"I could get a mask for your eyes," Arthur offered, purely out of self-interest.

Eames's mouth curved into a smile. "And miss this view? Not a chance. Tell me, do you have those fetching white trousers tailored to fit so snugly?"

"It's a _uniform_ ," Arthur said, gritting his teeth.

"Is that a no then?"

"What would you even know about tailoring?" Arthur snapped. "Those plaid pants you had on were clearly straight off the rack at the Salvation Army."

Eames arched an eyebrow in a way that managed to be unutterably filthy. "Were you checking me out, pet?"

"Clothing that hideous is impossible to ignore."

Probably this was crossing a line, even with a client as obnoxious as this one, but Eames just laughed delightedly. "Mm, you have edges. Has anyone ever mentioned how attractive that is?"

"You're insufferable, Mr. Eames. Has anyone ever mentioned that?"

"Usually blokes who end up sleeping with me." Eames winked slyly. "I do enjoy having my chest massaged, if you'd oblige me."

Arthur bit back the sigh that wanted to escape. He edged the sheet down and refreshed the oil on his hands. The sooner he got on with it, the sooner he could send Mr. Eames on his way. He felt a warm puff of breath against his cheek as he leaned over. Eames's gaze fastened on him.

"Lovely," Eames murmured.

Arthur made the mistake of meeting his eyes, dark and bright and intently focused. Eames licked his lips. His _porn lips_. That Arthur absolutely had no weakness for. At all. He quickly dropped his gaze. _Trapezius, pectoralis, abdominis._ He concentrated on each muscle as he touched it.

"You have no idea how beautiful you look doing that."

"You have no idea how annoying you are."

"Oh, I have _some_ idea, darling." Eames grinned broadly.

Arthur had been keeping watch on the clock out of the corner of his eye, and when the minute hand _finally_ hit the hour, he took a big step back from the table. "Time's up." He didn't even try not to sound glad about it.

Eames smiled lazily and pushed himself up onto his elbows. "You've wrecked me. Positively ruined me for all other message therapists. I think I may even need a cigarette."

And the thing was: he did look wrecked. Messy haired and loose-limbed, skin glistening, the same way he'd look after—

"Drink plenty of fluids, shower's down the hall, take all the time you need," Arthur fired off the usual post-massage instructions and strode out of the room.

 _Strode_. Not fled.

This was one client he'd be all too happy to hand back over to Nash.

* * *

Unfortunately, it seemed Mr. Eames had other plans.

The next afternoon when Arthur was hanging out at the front desk talking to Ariadne while between clients, he stumbled across the diabolical plot.

"What the hell is this?" he demanded, torn between outrage and slow, creeping horror.

Ariadne raised an eyebrow at him. "The appointment book?"

"No! _This_! Why do I have Eames scheduled for three o'clock on Thursday?"

"Because he made an appointment?"

"He's Nash's client!"

"Was Nash's client," she corrected. "Apparently, once you've had Arthur, you never go back. That's a direct quote, actually. And why are you complaining? Tattoos and porn lips, that's totally your type."

"Is not! And what part of being a professional do people around here not understand? Also: is not!" He sucked in a much-needed breath. "I'm going to talk to Dom about this."

"Is too," Ariadne muttered as Arthur walked away. Possibly there was also some snickering involved, which Arthur pointedly ignored.

"Did you know that Eames has booked me instead of Nash for his next massage?" Arthur burst into Dom's office without bothering to knock.

Dom had been deep in contemplation over a stack of bills, and Arthur would admit that there had perhaps been a _bit_ of an edge to his voice. The paperwork went shooting off the desk as Dom startled, which earned Arthur a death glare.

"It may surprise you to learn that I don't actually memorize every detail about everything that happens in this spa," Dom said snippily.

Frankly Arthur suspected this was a big, fat lie. He was pretty sure that Dom could reel off the exact shade of the hideous minty green paint in the breakroom, the number of cracks in the ceiling of massage room two, and the name of the ghastly perfume Mrs. Kleinbaum always showed up to her appointments drenched in.

"Although—" Dom paused weightily, darting a glance up at Arthur.

" _What_?"

"It's not exactly the most surprising thing that's ever happened. Nash is kind of a hack, and you're—you."

Arthur scowled. "If he's a hack, why did you hire him?"

Dom shrugged. "The salon was new. I needed people."

"You needed people," Arthur repeated in a flat voice which he hoped conveyed: _Oh my God, what kind of shitty place do I work?_

Dom sighed. "Can you get to the point of your freakout? I've got invoices to pay."

"You have to tell Eames that I'm not available. Make him go back to Nash," Arthur said very firmly, in the no-nonsense voice he used during salary negotiations and to ward off elderly female clients who liked to pinch his dimples.

Dom made a chastising face that Arthur suspected he routinely used on his children. "What do I always say, Arthur?"

"That the state of New York obviously has it in for small businesses, because why else would there be so many Byzantine regulations and enough taxes to choke all of Staten Island?"

Dom sighed again. "The _other_ thing."

Arthur pressed his mouth together stubbornly. Repeating Dom's half-insane rants had amusement value, but he refused to be a party to his ridiculous clichés.

"The customer is always right, Arthur," Dom said in such a fervent tone that it was a little scary. "And anyway—" His brow furrowed. "I really thought you'd—I mean, he's kind of, you know, your—"

"Don't say it! Why does everyone keep saying that?"

Dom shrugged in a way that heavily implied, _Because it's true_ , and Arthur stomped away.

 _Manfully_. Not in a snit.

Of course the first person he passed in the hall was Nash, because the universe just loved Arthur like that.

Nash looked only slightly less like death warmed over today, and his face puckered up at the sight of Arthur. "I have two kidneys. You want one of those too?"

"Do _not_ even start with me," Arthur warned him.

But this was Nash, so he promptly did a u-turn, and followed Arthur down the hall to continue hectoring him. "You planned this, didn't you? I don't know how, but you infected me on purpose. All to steal my Three O'clock!"

Arthur stopped and whirled and glared. "Oh my God, are you delirious or just a fucking lunatic? And for the record, I don't even want your stupid client!"

"Everybody wants him!"

"Are you two trying to bankrupt me?" came floating out of Dom's office. "Get back to work!"

Arthur shot one last glare of "I wish I _had_ given you the plague" at Nash and stomped off to room two, because he had a job to do and he was going to be a fucking professional about it, even if he was the only one who knew what that meant in this whole stupid spa.

* * *

By the time Thursday rolled around—way too quickly by Arthur's measure—he'd managed to convince himself that maybe Eames hadn't been quite as obnoxious as he'd remembered. Maybe Arthur had been predisposed to dislike him simply because he was Nash's favorite client. Maybe he'd hallucinated those god-awful plaid trousers.

But no. Two seconds into their next meeting was more than enough to convince Arthur that his memory of their previous encounter had been perfectly precise.

"Darling!" Eames's eyes lit up as Arthur stepped into the room, and he loomed in a way that suggested he was considering some kind of physical contact.

Arthur carefully sidestepped, moving himself out of touching range. "Mr. Eames," he said coolly, trying to avert his eyes from the lime-green monstrosity of a shirt the man was wearing.

"Who knew we'd meet again so soon?" Eames beamed delightedly.

"You made an appointment," Arthur reminded him.

"And I see you've worn those charming white trousers I like so much." Eames slid an appreciative gaze over Arthur.

"It's a uniform!"

"Shouldn't you be leaving me to it now?" Eames yanked his shirt up over his head and flung it down. "Or were you planning to stay for this bit?"

Arthur managed to get though the door before more clothing hit the floor, but it was a close thing.

The session went much the same as the last one had: Eames made enough pornographic sounds to put all of XTube to shame, and had the temerity to be utterly gorgeous beneath Arthur's hands, and Arthur worked him over just a little more viciously than he would have done anyone else. When it came time to turn over, Eames pulled the same move-before-the-sheet-is-up trick, and Arthur just—let him. If a man was well and truly determined to show you his junk, you were eventually going to see it. Might as well get it over with, Arthur reasoned, and then they could stop playing this stupid game.

"I suppose you have to admire a man who's not afraid to reveal his inadequacies," Arthur said dryly, settling the sheet back into place.

Eames grinned up at him, as if he knew just how much Arthur was lying.

Finally, _finally_ Arthur finished up the session and sent Eames packing. He loitered around in the breakroom long enough that he felt sure Eames must have gone by now. Only when he went out front to check on his next appointment, Eames was lounging casually against the desk, chatting up Ariadne. Against all odds, an irrational flash of jealousy shot up Arthur's spine.

It vanished the moment Eames spotted him and boomed out, "Darling!" He swooped in before Arthur could dodge and planted a kiss on his cheek. "I'd say I hoped it was as good for you too, but maybe someday I'll have the opportunity to return the favor." He winked and gave Ariadne a jaunty wave and left Arthur all alone to face the half dozen incredulous faces staring at him from the waiting area.

Several of the ladies smiled as if he were fucking adorable, and he thought Mrs. Wollenski had taken a picture on her camera phone, and Mr. Rudolph looked put out that he hadn't been receiving such personal service. Mr. Rudolph who was 110 years old if he was a day.

And then there was Ariadne, who practically radiated smugness. "Told you he was your type."

As if all this weren't bad enough, Eames decided that tormenting Arthur twice a week wasn't sufficient and began to invent excuses to come in between times. Wrenched back. A strained calf muscle that Eames insisted he'd gotten training for a triathlon, which made Arthur snort with disbelief. Work tension, and there was no way Arthur could let that one go.

"You sell art, and you're hardly ever at the office. What could possibly be stressful about that?"

"Darling," Eames chastised him. "You say that as someone who's never had to find just the right thing for a noveau riche client who demands that her art match the drawing room drapes." He shuddered melodramatically.

Truly, Arthur couldn't imagine how his life could get any worse.

And then the gifts started to arrive.

* * *

In the breakroom the next afternoon, Arthur sat down to his usual lunch of salad, whole grain bread and banana. As a member of the health profession, he believed very fervently that you were, in fact, what you ate. He took his first bite of endive and contemplated the vase of daisies someone had placed on the table. Arthur had always had a soft spot for daisies, their elegant simplicity, the mathematical precision at the heart of them. These particular daisies were by far the most beautiful ones he'd ever seen, tall and graceful, snowy petals and plump centers with perfect Golden Spirals.

A note sat propped against the vase, cream-colored card stock, expensive by the feel of it. In contrast, the writing inside looked like a third-grader had been let loose, erratic and ungainly, a waste of a good fountain pen.

_With deepest gratitude for a truly transformative experience._

Arthur boggled, frankly, that the writer had been able to spell "transformative." He supposed Dom would be pleased that Inception had developed a clientele loyal enough to send them barely literate thank you notes.

Ariadne breezed in, stopped by the table, and gave Arthur a long, speculative stare as if she'd never seen him before in her life.

"Yes, this is me eating my lunch," he told her.

"Do you like the flowers?"

He shrugged. His appreciation of daisies was something he preferred to keep a private matter.

Ariadne's lips quirked. "Is this you trying to be macho?"

"Bite me," he said around a mouthful of greens.

Ariadne smirked. "You totally like the flowers." She sauntered off looking pleased with herself.

Sometimes Arthur thought the entire Inception staff—himself excluded of course—dearly needed an intervention.

 

A few minutes before three, Arthur let out a deep breath and gathered all his courage and went to face his bi-weekly Eamesian misadventure.

"Good afternoon, Arthur," Eames said when he came into the room.

Today, Eames had on black slacks and a plum colored button-up shirt, almost somber for him. He didn't lunge into Arthur's personal space, or start putting on a striptease, or even stare like he was imagining doing filthy, possibly illegal things to Arthur's person. Frankly, this was more restraint than Arthur would have given him credit for.

He regarded Eames with a confused frown. "What's wrong with you? Are you sick or something?"

"Or something."

This only made Arthur frown harder. "Well—you know what to do. I'll be back in five."

He returned to find Eames lying docilely beneath the sheet. He greeted Arthur with a polite smile and lowered his head and let out an anticipatory breath. He hadn't called Arthur "darling" even once. The fact that Arthur found this confounding only made Eames more infuriating than ever.

During the massage, Eames actually—cooperated. He allowed Arthur to guide him with perfect compliance, didn't turn over until Arthur held up the sheet, and while he did make the usual sinful pleasure noises, they seemed to spill out of him almost involuntarily.

"Mm, you do have magic hands, Arthur," he said at one point, although it sounded sincere and admiring rather than like a snippet of bad porn dialogue the way his compliments usually did.

Arthur grew more confused by the moment.

Once on his back, Eames closed his eyes, also unlike him, and the lack of distraction left Arthur with far too much time to contemplate how beautiful Eames's body was. He moved his hands vigorously up and down Eames's arm. Arthur's inner hedonist, that he usually kept carefully in check, practically did cartwheels, reveling in the sheer gorgeousness of taut, cut muscles. There was even something whimsical and appealing about the god-awful ugly body art.

When Arthur finished, Eames fluttered his eyes open, drowsy and sated, no doubt the same way he'd look after—Arthur swallowed hard. He almost regretted the absence of the obnoxiousness that made it so easy to ignore everything else about Eames.

"Thank you, Arthur. Truly you are a virtuosos at what you do." There was something in his voice, something almost fond, and that had to be a trick of some sort.

Pieces started to fit themselves together in Arthur's head: the grade-school writing on the note and Ariadne's insistence that Arthur liked the daisies and Eames's sudden turnabout. He blurted out in surprise, "The flowers, they were—" From Eames, and not for the entire Inception staff at all.

Eames smiled softly. "A little bird suggested that lechery wasn't the way to your heart, so I thought I'd try a different tack."

"Let me guess. This little bird's name is Ariadne."

"The bird prefers to remain anonymous."

Arthur snorted. "I'm curious. Is lechery the way to anyone's heart?"

"You'd be surprised."

Arthur rolled his eyes. Eames had to be the most ridiculous person alive, and anyway Arthur knew perfectly well it was his pants Eames wanted into, not his heart.

"Oh, I wouldn't mind that either, of course," Eames said as if he could read Arthur's mind. His gaze traveled lovingly up Arthur's body.

Arthur shook his head. "You really can't help yourself, can you?"

Eames grinned winningly.

 

At the first opportunity, Arthur hunted down Ariadne, haranguing her in the breakroom, where she was drinking coffee and trying to read a magazine.

"Why are you encouraging him?"

To Ariadne's credit, she didn't put on an innocent face and ask _who?_ Arthur hated it when people insulted his intelligence.

"I'm not encouraging him," she corrected. "I'm redirecting his efforts. There's a difference. He doesn't need any encouragement. He's quite committed all on his own.

"You mean he ought to _be_ committed," Arthur said meanly.

Ariadne gave him a mildly pitying look.

"What?" Arthur demanded.

"Don't you think it's time you got over this thing?"

"What thing? I don't have a thing?"

"You really, really do. A thing where it pisses you off to find someone attractive, and you come up with a long list of reasons to hate the poor guy, and you refuse to give him the time of day no matter how much you actually like him."

"It does not piss me off to find someone attractive! That's stupid. I go on dates. I have boyfriends. I don't know what the fuck you're talking about."

"No?" Ariadne gave him the skeptically raised eyebrow, which Arthur really, really hated.

"Come on! You met Dale. We were together for seven months before he left on that grant to do field research in Paraguay."

Ariadne pulled a face.

"What?" Arthur demanded.

"Nothing."

"Ariadne."

"Okay, fine, but remember you asked. Dale was a mouth-breather who only ate white food and thought watching documentaries about insect larvae was a racy way to spend a Saturday. You may have dated him, but there's no way you genuinely found him attractive."

"He was doing very important work on the _Leiophron argentinensis Shaw_!"

"Yes, I'm sure you had a deep, meaningful connection over wasps," Ariadne said sadly. "Look, Arthur, I know you don't talk about whatever happened, and far be it from me to pry."

Arthur snorted, loudly.

Ariadne gave him a hard look. "Because I'm _not_ nosy. But it doesn't take a genius to figure out that you were once totally screwed over by somebody buff, tattooed and charming. Because that _is_ your type, and you run away from every guy even remotely like that, as fast and far as you can go."

Arthur scowled at her, but before he could argue the point, Nash came trudging into the room, still sniffling and no doubt spreading contagion. He looked from Arthur to Ariadne and back again, his forehead becoming more creased by the moment. "What are you two talking about?"

"Arthur's future husband!" Ariadne declared gleefully before Arthur could snap, "None of your fucking business!"

Nash's eyes went wide and crazed, like the paranoid lunatic he was. "You're all conspiring against me!"

"Oh my fucking God! Has no one around this place ever even _heard_ the word 'professionalism'?" Arthur stomped away before the urge to chuck all his co-workers out the window became overpowering.

* * *

"I'm going to be out of town for a week or so," Eames said after their next session, corralling Arthur out in the waiting room. "So I've brought a little something to keep me in your thoughts." He foisted a silver-foil-wrapped package into Arthur's hands.

"I can't accept this, Mr. Eames," Arthur informed him loftily.

Eames just smiled. "I'll count the moments until I see your lovely, scowling face again."

"Hey—"

Eames managed to slip out the door before Arthur could shove the present back at him. He turned to find every last pair of eyes in the place riveted on him. Flores Goodridge, a socialite who'd already been through four husbands and was working on the fifth, gave him the thumb's up. Mrs. Wollenski was once again snapping pictures on her phone.

Arthur turned on his heel and walked purposefully to the back. He absolutely did not blush and run away like an embarrassed teenager. In the break room, he sat with the gift on the table, surveying it with all the wariness of a bomb squad technician. He resolved not to open it—for about three seconds—before giving in to the fact that he was only human, with a fully functioning sense of curiosity.

Once he'd dispensed with the wrapping paper, he really could only stare.

Everyone had a weakness, a secret indulgence, even someone like Arthur, who prided himself on being a paragon of locally grown, organic eating. Here was his weakness: a shrink-wrapped package of sugary, electric-yellow, artificial-preservative-laden Peep-shaped goodness, two months past the Easter holiday, just turning stale the way Arthur liked them. A note had been messily taped to the wrapping paper, and in the same barely literate scrawl was written: _I cherish an ambition of getting you mussed and exasperated and feeding you these with my own fingers. A man must have some aspirations in life._

Arthur's traitorous brain painted by numbers, bringing the scene vividly to life, himself and Eames and no clothes anywhere to be seen, on a fluffy white bed, with an endless supply of yellow marshmallow chicks so they wouldn't have to get up for sustenance. In the next breath, Arthur became murderously furious—at himself and Eames and perhaps most of all at Dom.

This weakness for Peeps was a carefully guarded secret, known only to Dom by way of a drunken confession the last time—and there would never be another one, because Arthur had finally wised up—a buff, tattooed guy with porn lips had broken his heart into little, bitter pieces. Arthur had gone to drown his grief at the bar where he and the heartbreaker used to spend quiet Friday evenings together. About two hours in, he'd completely lost sight of his long-held "don't mix different kinds of alcohol" rule, and zigzagged across the spectrum of booze. He'd topped off the evening with shots of Goldschlager, because at the end of a long night of drinking, this was exactly the kind of thing that seemed like a good idea.

That was when Dom had showed up—called by the bartender, who'd taken Arthur's phone without his realizing it. Dom wrangled him home and put him to bed. On the way, apparently Arthur felt the need to babble the pathetic details of his breakup. He'd confided the final indignity: that the heartbreaker had bought home a box of Peeps without offering to share them, realizing perfectly well they were Arthur's favorite, and he'd taken the box with him when he'd gone. Truly, Arthur had been about seven sheets to the wind. He never would have remembered this pitiful babbling if Dom hadn't brought it up the next day in a painfully misguided attempt to go all Oprah on Arthur's personal life. Dom, who had the emotional sensitivity of a scalpel.

The point was: there was only one way Eames could have found out about Arthur's guilty Peep love.

He stormed into Dom's office. Apparently Dom had been expecting the visit, because he was wearing his braced-for-bad-news expression, the way he looked before every quarterly meeting with his accountant.

"Stop interfering!" Arthur pointed a finger, as menacing as he could manage without an actual weapon in hand.

"Arthur, it's time you got over this thing of yours."

"Why does everyone think I have a thing?

"Maybe because you do?"

Arthur glared. A sensible person would surely have been cowed by his fierceness, but this was Dom, who'd never been sensible a day in his life.

"Look, Arthur, you can't let a few bad experiences cut you off from new possibilities. You're worth more than that. You have so much to offer."

A lecture on self-esteem from Dom Cobb—this set a new mark for excruciating experiences Arthur hoped never to repeat.

Dom met Arthur's eye and smiled in a steady, supportive, fatherly way. It was all too easy to imagine him having much this same conversation with James or Phillipa.

"You realize I am almost thirty years old and not actually one of your children?"

"Yes, I realize that, Arthur," Dom said, in a stiff, wholly unbelievable way.

"Stay out of my personal life!"

There was a pause. "Okay, Arthur, if that's what you want."

This was perhaps the most unbelievable thing of all.

* * *

It had long been the ambition of Arthur's parents to retire somewhere very far away from the sloppy, dispiriting sight of Queens in winter. The day after Arthur's father sold his accounting business, they packed their bags for Boca, left the family home in Arthur's care, and never looked back.

Arthur had a whole song-and-dance he went through to explain why he still lived in the same house he'd grown up in: where else would he ever find so much space, and who could argue with living completely rent-free, and Astoria was only twenty minutes away from midtown when the N was running right. This was all completely true and yet also total bullshit.

The fact was Arthur _liked_ Queens. He liked pizza from Abruzzi's and produce from Mr. Costas's store on the corner and the old guys who sat on the bench outside the bakery smoking and gossiping. Arthur liked his parents' house. He liked his mother's rooster clock above the stove in the kitchen, and his father's office with all the old accounting books still on the shelves, and the worn Arts and Crafts style wallpaper in the hallway that had been there since Arthur was born.

Arthur had Mondays and Wednesdays off. As with most of his off days, he spent this one at his father's stolid, battered old desk industriously at work on his thesis. At least if it could be called "industry" to read the occasional page of _Walden_ and then stare absently into space for long minutes. Arthur had done the doctoral program in American Studies at Columbia, completed his course work, and written a draft of his dissertation. Just as soon as he finished tinkering with it, he'd defend it, get his degree, and move on to the next phase of his life.

If you could call it "tinkering" when he'd been at it for almost three years now.

"How did I manage to raise such a perfectionist?" Arthur's mother once asked in exasperation.

"Degas used to buy back his paintings to work on them some more, you know," Arthur had said in his defense. It wasn't about perfection, a point he'd never been able to explain—well, to anyone. He just needed to feel like he'd given his work everything he had. He needed to be finished in the truest sense of the word. Sadly, Columbia wouldn't let him take back his thesis from the library shelf and re-edit it if he changed his mind about something. Degas would have understood.

He read another page and resolutely refused to wonder if Eames knew that story about Degas and if perhaps he, too, might understand. Arthur's computer sat in front of him, Google just a click away. He'd been resisting the temptation all morning to put it to work on Eames. That seemed like giving Eames something he might want, and Arthur was opposed to this on principle. But as Arthur considered it more, it began to seem only right—turnabout and _quid pro quo_ and whatever. If Eames could use Arthur's so-called friends to invade his privacy, then Arthur could damned well use the Internet. Besides, Eames would never know.

 _Eames really does like pictures of himself_ was Arthur's first thought as he sifted through the Google results. There were shots of him smiling at the camera from four continents. The most recent articles mentioned shows at his gallery and deals he'd helped to broker. The further Arthur dug, though, the seedier the references became. "Art dealer suspected in Vermeer forgery, no charges brought" blared across the front page of _The Telegraph_ , accompanied by a picture of a younger Eames wearing a predictable smirk.

"Ha!" Arthur said out loud to no one in particular. Eames was a rogue, in all sorts of ways, and Arthur felt more justified than ever for not giving him the least bit of consideration.

The phone interrupted his gloating.

"I hear you have a new man in your life." Yusuf sounded amused.

Arthur let out his breath. Of course, Yusuf had gotten this misinformation from Ariadne, whom he'd been dating since his second year in grad school at Columbia. That was where the three of them had met.

"It's a scurrilous falsehood," Arthur assured him.

"Really, Arthur. Still not over your thing?"

"Oh for fuck's sake, there is no thing!"

"That you sound like you're about to have an aneurysm would beg to differ," Yusuf said dryly.

"Everyone I know can just fuck off and die already," Arthur grumbled.

Yusuf laughed. "But then who would have you over this Friday night for stuffed brook trout and all the Merlot you can drink?"

Yusuf was a brilliant cook, so sadly there was no arguing the point.

* * *

On Tuesdays, Arthur always took himself out to his favorite vegan restaurant for lunch. He laid claim to his usual table by the windows, open to let in the mild sunny weather, and craned his neck to check out the chalked list of specials. The three-bean casserole sounded good.

He'd eaten all of two bites when an Eames-shaped shadow fell across his table.

Arthur scowled at him. "You're early."

Eames made himself at home as if he were utterly blind to Arthur's death glare. "Tragic news, darling. I've had to cancel my appointment. Business calls. But I did want to deliver this first." He held out a parcel wrapped in plain brown paper.

"If it's some kind of porn, I'm not interested.

"Darling, you wound me. Now take the package, there's a good Arthur."

Arthur made no move to accept it, concentrating resolutely on his plate.

"In polite society, people open their gifts," Eames observed.

"But I'm not in polite society," Arthur pointed out. "I'm with you."

Eames smiled, completely unruffled. "Allow me then, darling." He undid the paper, taking it apart neatly at the taped seams rather than ripping into it, which was not what Arthur would have expected.

The gift turned out to be a book. Arthur was ready to restate his refusal to accept porn when he caught a glance of blue leather and gold engraving and the title, _Leaves of Grass_. He had no memory of snatching it away from Eames, lost in a daze of book lust. Just suddenly it was in his hands, which were shaking as he opened the cover and found the publication date. 1855. An honest-to-God first edition. It even _smelled_ like history.

"I'll read you a little something, yeah?" Eames offered.

"No—"

But Eames had already taken the book and was flipping pages. "Ah yes, this bit." He began to read in a low, sonorous voice that did _absolutely_ nothing to Arthur. Nothing! " _Spontaneous me, Nature, the loving day, the mounting sun, the friend I am happy with, the arm of my friend hanging idly over my shoulder, the hillside whiten'd with blossoms of the mountain ash_ —"

Arthur hissed at him, "You're causing a scene!" In no way did he secretly mean: _If you keep doing that, I'm going to have to jump you_.

"Am I?" The amused quirk of Eames's lips suggested that he understood exactly what Arthur had meant.

"I can't accept it," Arthur declared, even though it hurt him to say it. "There's never going to be anything personal between us."

"Be that as it may, it would still please me if you'd keep the book."

"I really—"

Eames set the volume on the table and rose to his feet. He leaned down to Arthur. For a moment Arthur really thought Eames was going to kiss him. He made no move to deflect it—but only because he didn't want to make a scene. Eames smiled amusedly as he leaned in to whisper into Arthur's ear, "Consider it a token of what might have been."

He did kiss Arthur then, chastely on the cheek, and left. Arthur eyed the book as he finished his casserole, and, really, what else was there to do but keep it? _Against my will_ , he insisted to himself, as he carefully picked up the book and clutched it possessively the whole way back to Inception.

* * *

At massage school, Arthur had learned the key to managing a difficult client: state your boundaries firmly and clearly and make sure you enforce them. Apparently this approach worked even on someone as incorrigible as Mr. Eames. After Arthur declared that there would be absolutely nothing personal between them, the gifts stopped. Eames was cordial and well-behaved and as appreciative of Arthur's massage skills as ever, but the word "darling" never once dropped from his lips.

Naturally, Arthur's bad mood had absolutely nothing to do with any of that. It was simply that he worked with the most disorganized, unprofessional people in the history of the spa industry. This was enough to send anyone around the bend.

"God fucking damn it!" he yelled when he went to the linen closet for clean towels only to find it empty yet again. "Am I the only one around here who knows how to run the fucking washing machine?"

Nash stopped to smirk. "Bad day?"

"Fuck off."

"He's a fickle bastard, isn't he? Pretty soon he won't even want you as his massage therapist. I should know."

"Shut up! Or I will dangle you out of the window by your greasy hair."

"Dom!" Nash went scampering off to tattle.

Arthur did the laundry, stamped off to massage room two for his next appointment, and stopped by the breakroom to grab coffee afterward. The pot sat on the burner, empty and charred and stinking up the place, because whoever had finished the last cup couldn't be assed to turn it off.

"What the fuck is wrong with people?" Arthur dumped the pot into the sink. He had no intention of cleaning it, so he guessed he'd have to settle for tea.

Dom would spring for only the cheapest tea bags, the penny-pinching bastard, and Arthur had given up on bringing in his own. His grubby-handed colleagues just made off with it no matter how many labels he taped to the box declaring, "Arthur's property!!!" He made a face as he took a sip from his mug. How did this shit manage to be weak and bitter at the same time? Arthur resigned himself to the need for sugar and lifted the lid on the sugar bowl only to find it empty.

"Just fucking great."

He ransacked the cabinets. While they had every brand of artificial sweetener known to man, there was not a bit of honest-to-God sugar to be found anywhere.

"I hate everyone in the world," he declared to the empty air.

Ariadne had come in without his noticing. "You're cheerful today."

"Don't start with me."

"This foul mood of yours doesn't have anything to do with the sudden absence of love tokens, does it?"

"Fuck off."

Ariadne snorted. "Oh, yeah. You don't like him _at all_."

* * *

Fortunately for everyone involved, Arthur had a rare, precious Saturday off that weekend; he hoped to return to work less homicidal than he'd left it.

He woke up that morning to a sky that was a deep, brilliant blue and utterly cloudless. The air was warm and clear in a way that seldom happened in New York. A park day, definitely. He packed a lunch, and brought along a blanket and Robert Frost, and got to Central Park early enough to snag his favorite spot in the grass near the pond. He stretched out on his blanket and opened his book and lazed in the sun. It was his plan to do nothing more strenuous than blinking for the rest of the afternoon.

The park soon grew crowded, pasty Manhattanites lured outside by the picture-perfect weather descending in droves. Arthur liked his spot specifically because it was out of the way of foot traffic. When a passerby strayed close enough to blot out his sun, he scowled at the page he was reading and waited for them to move on. When the shadow stubbornly refused to budge, he looked up.

And found Eames grinning down at him.

"How did you—" Arthur glared. "You can be really fucking creepy, you know that?"

Eames plunked down onto the patch of grass next to Arthur. "I prefer to think of it as single-mindedly devoted."

"We talked about this."

"Mm." Eames sounded as unconcerned as a human being possibly could. He flipped open the sketchpad he'd brought along and bent his head and became absorbed in his work. The only sound coming from him was the soft scratch-scratch of his pencil over the page.

Arthur went back to reading, determined to ignore him. Every now and then, though, he'd feel a prickle along his skin and look up to find Eames watching him, his glance flicking from the page to Arthur and back again.

"What? You're drawing me?"

"Can't resist the scenery, darling."

Arthur pushed himself up on his elbow, craning his neck to get a look. Eames shook his head and pulled the sketchpad closer. "Not until it's finished."

"Is this what you do now instead of forgery?" Arthur asked as he settled back down. "Use your skills in unsuccessful attempts at seduction?"

"Ah, so you've had enough curiosity to turn to the Internet, have you?" He grinned slyly. "And whether it's successful or not remains to be seen."

"You don't deny it then? That you were an art forger?"

"To Interpol, the FBI and Scotland Yard? Yes, I deny it completely and utterly."

Arthur shook his head. "I can't believe you."

Eames shrugged. "Everyone gets up to things when they're young, Arthur."

"Not international crime!"

"It's possible I may have had a more colorful youth than some," Eames admitted. "Now hush. I've got work to do."

It became clear that Eames really was just going to draw, not tease or flirt or make a nuisance of himself. Arthur went back to his book. He would never, ever have admitted it to anyone, but it was actually kind of pleasant. Eames's presence felt companionable as Arthur drowsed in the sun, his mind swimming luxuriously through the stanzas of Frost. He didn't even really mind it when Eames snatched half his sandwich and one of his apples, although he made a point of complaining just for form's sake.

"There. That has it, I think," Eames declared at last.

Arthur blinked at him dazedly; it was possible he'd drifted off for a minute or two. Eames levered himself up to his feet. "It's been a pleasure, darling."

Arthur looked up, a crease between his eyes. He hadn't expected Eames would just—but whatever. Arthur didn't care what Eames did.

"Yeah. Whatever," Arthur said out loud to demonstrate this.

The corner of Eames's mouth quirked up, ever so slightly, as if he were trying not to laugh at Arthur. This was perhaps the most maddening thing that had ever happened in Arthur's life. Before he could become really irate about it, Eames bent down and whispered against his ear, "You are lovely in every way."

The drawing found its way into Arthur's hands, and Eames traipsed away across the grass. Arthur imagined the drawing would be either lewd, a slutty version of himself straight out of Eames's fantasies, or else it would be prim, uptight. _Does that stick ever come out of your ass?_ one of Arthur's former boyfriends had once asked. But the drawing was neither of those things. Arthur stared at it agape.

He looked—just like himself, as he'd been that afternoon, calm and content and a little sleepy, with just the slightest hint of a smile. Not that it was what Arthur could call an objective likeness. There was something in the character of the lines, a _fondness_ that said the artist was anything but a disinterested observer.

Three different thoughts flashed through Arthur's head at the same time: _Eames is way too talented to have ever wasted his time as a forger_ and _Is that really how he sees me?_ and _Fucking-fuck-fuck, I'm in so much trouble_.

* * *

Arthur braced himself for Eames's next visit, repeating the same mantra in his head a good three million times: _Don't freak out. He can't actually read your mind._ Which was good, because if Eames could, he'd know that Arthur had laid the drawing next to the Whitman first edition on his desk. He'd know that Arthur had sat there for hours, tinkering with his thesis, or pretending to, and whenever he'd look over at the drawing, a little thrill of pleasure had gone through him. 

"Mr. Eames," Arthur greeted him coolly when he arrived for his appointment.

"Darling," Eames answered with a smile, not the least put off by Arthur's tone. 

Once the massage got underway, Arthur tried to remind himself: Just a collection of muscle and bone and sinew. But God, _what_ a collection it was, and Arthur was only human, whatever Nash and others might have to say to the contrary. _Why does Eames have to be so fucking gorgeous_ Arthur thought bitterly as he moved his hands over biceps so staggeringly beautiful they could have made a grown man weep. A grown man who wasn't Arthur, naturally.

When it came time to turn over, Eames smiled up at Arthur, heavy-lidded and sated and fucking _sweet_. " _As if a phantom caress'd me, I thought I was not alone walking here by the shore_ ," he said, softly, his voice a little rough, the way he'd sound if Arthur woke up beside him. 

"You seriously need to stop that." Arthur's jaw clenched so hard the words had to fight their way out.

" _But the one I thought was with me as now I walk by the shore, the one I loved that caress'd me_ —"

Everyone had a weakness. Arthur had just been putting his hands all over Eames's body, and he'd looked at that drawing, at the fondness in it until the image floated behind his eyes, and now Whitman! Something had to give. Something had to happen. Arthur was perhaps more surprised than anyone that this turned out to be him bending down to press a kiss to Eames's chest. 

"Arthur." Eames lifted a hand, but stopped himself from touching, as if he thought Arthur might startle. "Please."

If Eames had been demanding, maybe that would have broken the spell, but _please_? How was Arthur supposed to resist that? He nudged the sheet down past Eames's thighs. He couldn't even bother being embarrassed when he blurted out, "Fuck, you're gorgeous." Bodies were Arthur's profession, after all, and only someone with no aesthetic sensibility at all would have been able to look at Eames, naked and eager and perfect, and _not_ have gone slack-jawed with appreciation. 

Arthur trailed his fingers along Eames's side. Eames's chest dipped sharply at the light touch. Suddenly it didn't matter that this was the worst idea ever. Arthur curled his hand, slick with oil, around Eames's cock and started to stroke. 

"Darling," Eames breathed out, and then grabbed at Arthur frantically, arm hooking around his waist, drawing him closer. 

He buried his face against Arthur's crotch, rubbing his cheek across the front of Arthur's pants. 

"Oh, God." Arthur's hand hitched for a moment, and then he started up again, his grip tighter.

"Mm," Eames moaned, and the vibration sent tremors up Arthur's back.

Eames mouthed Arthur's cock through his pants, wet and filthy, intent on sucking Arthur off through the fabric. Arthur hadn't come in his pants since he was fourteen years old, but this was Eames, so anything was possible. Arthur felt too fucking good to care. He jerked Eames's cock harder, enjoying the heat and heft of it as it slipped in his grip. 

Eames moaned and bit Arthur's thigh through his pants and pressed the heel of his hand to Arthur's dick. Arthur was too busy coming at first to realize that Eames was coming too, spilling across his own chest and Arthur's fingers. 

"Arthur," Eames said blissfully, panting against Arthur's thigh, smiling softly.

For a moment, Arthur smiled back, endorphins swimming around his brain, making him act like an idiot. Then the unpleasant sensation of damp, sticky fabric clinging to skin began to filter in, and words took shape in his head: _I just got paid to have sex with a client._ He took a giant step back from the table. 

" _Arthur_ ," Eames said firmly. Clearly he meant: _Don't be like this_.

"That can't ever happen again," Arthur insisted shrilly.

Eames pushed himself up onto one elbow. "I'm rather certain it can."

" _No_. Arthur shook his head determinedly. "That was unprofessional and inappropriate, and I didn't even _ask_ you. It was practically—" 

"You know it wasn't." Eames gave him a chiding look.

Arthur took a long breath and let it out. "Never again. Everything between us has to be purely professional. Those are my terms. Or we don't do this anymore. You'll have to find another massage therapist."

Eames gave Arthur a long, assessing look. "Fine," he said at last. "If that's the only way you'll continue to see me."

"Fine." Arthur left him to get dressed and went to the locker room to change his own clothes.

Once Eames had gone, Arthur bundled up the sheets and hurried off to the laundry room to do the wash of shame. Naturally Nash, who normally found any excuse to get out of laundry duty, turned up while Arthur was dumping more Tide into the machine than was strictly necessary. 

Nash cocked his head like a bloodhound. "Why do look so sneaky?" 

"Why do you look like a dimwitted weasel?"

"Dom!" Nash went huffing out of the room.

* * *

Discipline. That was what Arthur needed, the cure for a temporary bout of Eames-induced insanity. After work, he headed home and changed clothes and went for a long run. Took a cold shower afterward. Sat down to a pristinely healthy dinner of brown rice and steamed vegetables. He didn't pick up the first edition Whitman and cradle it possessively the way he might have done on another evening at home. He didn't glance at the drawing even once, no matter how much he might have liked to.

At Inception the next day, Ariadne did a double take at him. "God, Arthur, you look—" He scowled, and she put on a smile that was so obviously fake it was an insult to her intelligence and his. "Fine! You look just fine."

He stomped back to the breakroom and hurled I-dare-you-to-talk-to-me glares at everyone gathered there. It worked, because no one fucked with him for the rest of the day, although occasionally he would stumble onto shifty-eyed groups of his co-workers who'd go silent at the sight of him as if he'd interrupted their intervention planning. 

Eames was perfectly self-possessed when he turned up for his next appointment, which was fucking annoying. Arthur clamped on an expression of professional objectivity and gritted his teeth and concentrated on just getting through the hour. 

Fifteen minutes in, he felt a prickle of sweat breaking out along his hairline. The scent of warm skin and oil was making him feel dazed. Why did Eames have to smell so fucking good? He dragged his hands along the latissimus dorsi, and imagined tracing the same path with his tongue, until Eames was writhing and breathy and not the least bit self-possessed. Arthur could do that. He really could. The realization made him stutter to a stop.

"Arthur?" Eames said uncertainly, lifting his head.

"Turn over," Arthur ordered.

"What—"

"Turn. Over." 

Eames shifted position, eyebrow raised, a smirk lifting one corner of his mouth. Arthur must have looked as crazy-desperate as he felt, because Eames quickly lost the smirk. His eyes went dark and glittering. "Arthur."

That was it, the final blow to whatever flimsy self-control Arthur had left. He snatched the sheet away and threw it onto the floor. Stared greedily before putting his mouth on Eames's body, on the flat of his belly and the tops of his thighs and the beautiful hollow of his hip. 

" _Arthur_." Eames grabbed for him, hands pulling at his shirt. "Get naked with me."

Arthur threw off his clothes like a maniac. 

"Come _on_ ," Eames urged.

Arthur clambered up onto the table, which probably hadn't been designed to hold the weight of two people, but what the fuck ever. He kissed his way up Eames's chest, licking at the bitter-thick taste of massage oil, and pressed his face hotly against Eames's neck. _Why do you smell so good?_

Maybe he said that out loud, because Eames moaned, "Darling," and pulled Arthur more tightly against him, a hand cupping Arthur's ass, the other sliding into his hair. 

"Fuck."

There was no finesse to any of it; they rutted and panted and made the table shake. Arthur clamped his knees tighter against Eames's hips and pushed down hard enough to bruise them both, and that still wasn't enough. He slid his hand between their bodies and caught both their cocks in his fist. 

Eames made a sound that was perhaps meant to be a word, but it failed to take shape. Arthur chanted, jaw clenched in concentration, "Come on, _come on_. Eames made another noise, more desperate, and then there was hot and wet spreading between their bodies. _Fuck_. Eames had just come on him. That was all the inspiration Arthur needed to return the favor. 

He sagged against Eames, warm and floaty and out of it, head tucked against Eames's shoulder. Eames stroked Arthur's hair and pressed kisses to the side of his head.

"Darling," he said, sounding content and—delighted. 

_Fuck_! How had Arthur done this again? He scrambled off the table and grabbed up his clothes and shoved himself into them, getting tangled in his T-shirt, spewing a string of curses. 

"Arthur."

"I can't see you anymore. I resign as your massage therapist. And you need to find a new spa."

"Can't we—" Eames began, in a _be reasonable_ voice.

" _No_ , we can't." 

Arthur got the hell out of there before he could commit any more acts of stupidity. Unfortunately, he ran straight into Dom. 

"Um," Dom stammered, turning a distressed shade of purple, mouth twisting unhappily. No doubt he'd look exactly like this the day he had to sit down and explain birth control to Phillipa. 

"Am I fired?" Arthur asked, cutting to the chase.

"No."

"If I swear to God this was a temporary bout of insanity, can we never, ever speak of it again?"

"Yes!" Dom said, jumping at the chance, eyes going huge with relief. "Yes. Absolutely."

"Okay then. Good talk." Arthur sidestepped Dom and continued on down the hall.

"Arthur?" Dom called after him. "Are you sure you don’t need an intervention?"

Arthur didn't stop to dignify that, but the universe hated him, so of course Nash popped up out of nowhere. 

"Why do you look like you just got laid?" he asked, with narrowed eyes. 

Arthur kept on walking.

* * *

It was the right thing to do, stopping the thing between him and Eames. Arthur spent the whole week telling himself that. This was only confirmed when Eames didn't call or show up or send Arthur a set of Van Gogh refrigerator magnets. Clearly, he'd already gotten what he was after. And Arthur had absolutely done the right thing. If he felt like a robot with skin as he went through the motions of his day, if he let Ariadne press her shoulder against his in a gesture of solidarity when they sat at the breakroom table eating lunch, well—he didn't have to justify himself to anyone.

One week turned into two, and nothing from Eames. Definitely Arthur had done the right thing.

Nash cornered Arthur in the hallway when he figured out that Eames wouldn't be coming back. "This is all your fault! Now I don't even get to ogle him while he's hanging out in the reception area. I hope you're happy!"

Before Arthur could show Nash exactly how happy he was, preferably with his fists, Dom came charging out of his office. "Nash." He jerked his head, a Dom-gesture that meant _go the hell somewhere else_. "Arthur, in my office."

Arthur braced himself for a rant, but Dom just motioned for Arthur to sit. He pulled a bottle of 114-proof bourbon—which he'd probably claim was for medicinal purposes if Arthur asked—out of his bottom drawer, filled two Dixie cups, and handed one over. 

"I'm not pissed at you for losing me a customer, just so you know. All things considered, it's probably for the best."

"Glad you approve," Arthur said tightly, tipping back his paper cup, the whiskey burning all the way down.

"So what are you doing, Arthur? Do you even know?"

"You remember that talk we had about how you're not my father?"

Dom steamrolled on. "Because it looks to me like you told this guy to fuck off, and he did, and now you're pissed about it. Does that about sum it up?"

Arthur scowled. Dom's gaze didn't waver. He hardly even blinked. It was a tactic he probably used on his kids to get them to confess to putting the empty milk carton back into the refrigerator.

"When you put it that way, it does sound crazy!" Arthur complained, grabbing the bourbon bottle. "I never asked for this, you know." 

He really hadn't. He'd been perfectly happy dating Dale the mouth-breather and Lewis the actuary and Sherman who'd been afraid of broccoli. Okay, maybe not happy. But it had been _fine_.

Dom's expression said, _Please grow up_.

His mouth went a more diplomatic route. "Why don't you just call him?"

Arthur downed the last of his bourbon and crumpled the Dixie cup. "See you on Thursday, Dom."

* * *

Even at the best of times, Arthur liked to keep busy on his off days, and this was more like the crappiest of times. So, busy it was. He got up early the next morning, dropped off his dry cleaning, went to the gym, bought stamps at the post office, shopped for tomatoes at Mr. Costas's, and made a list in his head on the way home of all the things he needed to clean.

He turned the corner onto his block and started up the front walk to his house and—stopped. Eames was camped out on his porch, casually sprawled, holding two large cups from Arthur's favorite neighborhood coffee place. 

_Where the fuck have you been?_ Only Arthur had told Eames to fuck off, in so many words, so he could hardly fire off that question. Instead, he settled for, "Do you follow me? Is that how you know?" He nodded at the cups.

Eames just smiled and held out one of them. Arthur didn't budge, and Eames tilted his head as if to say, _It's only coffee._. Arthur took it grudgingly and tried a sip; it was just the way he liked his coffee, dark and sweet.

"Seriously, did you call my parents in Florida?"

"I've got to have some secrets, darling. Mystery is the key to romance, after all." Eames patted the spot next to him. "I won't bite, promise."

For a moment, Arthur thought about refusing, but it was his fucking porch. He sat and drank his coffee and stared straight ahead. 

"I've been out of town chasing up a Rothko for a client, which proved far more tedious than it should have done." Arthur started at the touch of Eames's lips to his temple. "Did you miss me?" His voice took a tumble into a lower, flirtier octave.

Arthur swigged his coffee, wishing it would scald his mouth so he wouldn't have to say anything, but it was the fucking perfect temperature. 

Eames took Arthur's silence as an invitation to continue. "You didn't think I'd gone off and forgot all about you, did you, love?"

"I told you I couldn't be your massage therapist anymore." 

"Yes, darling, but you never mentioned anything about not being my boyfriend." Eames's lips turned up in a smile. "Or do you prefer another term? Significant other? Paramour? Studmuffin?"

Arthur did the only logical thing in response to such a maddening provocation. He grabbed Eames by the front of his painfully ugly T-shirt and kissed him hard on the mouth. It was the first time they'd actually done that, he realized. "I did fucking miss you," he bit out angrily. "Happy now?"

"Deliriously." Eames slid his hand along Arthur's jaw and kissed him again. "Now, you should invite me in, since I've come all the way to Queens to claim you as my own. I rode the _subway_ , Arthur."

"This is such a bad idea." 

"Pet." Eames slid an arm around Arthur's shoulders. "I don't know where you've got this notion that I'm going to break your heart, but I assure you my intentions are quite to the contrary."

Arthur snorted. "Great. Good intentions. That always works out so well." He got to his feet, and Eames stared up at him. "Are you coming in or what?"

Eames grinned and scrambled up and followed Arthur into the house. "I want the complete tour." He glanced around the hallway. "I see someone likes—"

Arthur shoved him against the wall and licked his neck.

"—William Morris," Eames finished breathlessly. "You're right, darling. That's more than enough of a tour." He grabbed Arthur's ass and kissed him thoroughly.

Somehow Arthur was able to make himself pull away. "Upstairs."

He took Eames's hand and hauled him up the steps to his bedroom and pushed him down onto the bed. 

"Get your clothes off." The words were muffled by his T-shirt, which he was pulling over his head. 

Eames leaned back on his elbows, looking like every kind of temptation. "Why don't you come over here and make me?" 

Arthur kicked off his jeans and climbed on top of Eames and started stripping the clothes off him. "Do you have any idea how fucking crazy-making you are? When I'm trying to be professional, you can't flash your cock at me enough. When I need to be having sex with you right the fuck now, you can't be assed to take your damned pants off."

"It's your sweet talk that makes me so mad for you, I think," Eames said with an air of great consideration.

Arthur leaned down and bit Eames's pretty bottom lip, which made Eames laugh. He flipped them over, and pushed Arthur's thighs apart, and fit himself between them. "I've never got to touch you properly. That needs to be remedied." He put his mouth on Arthur's thighs.

"I was going to fuck you," Arthur managed, gasping. It wasn't exactly a complaint.

"Later," Eames murmured against his skin. He kissed his way up Arthur's leg to the crease between thigh and body, which he licked lavishly. 

Arthur sucked in a breath. "Fuck."

Eames's smile was more than a little smug, and Arthur meant to roll his eyes at him. Then Eames dragged his tongue the length of Arthur's erection, and instead his eyes rolled back in his head.

"Porn lips," he said helplessly. 

Mischief sparked in Eames's eyes, and he put that filthy-beautiful mouth to work on Arthur's cock, demonstrating just how talented it was. Arthur looked away as fast as he could. He was under no illusions that this was going to last very long, but if he watched—fuck, _porn lips_. He tried to concentrate on the ceiling, but Eames didn't exactly make that easy. He really liked giving head apparently. He certainly put his whole self into it, moving and licking and making noises in the back of his throat. 

Arthur had to look.

He was prepared for how hot Eames's mouth would be wrapped around his cock, but the blissful expression on Eames's face—

" _Fuck_ ," he said emphatically and came. When his synapses started to fire again, he thought to offer, "I can—let me—"

"No need, love." Eames flopped next to Arthur, curving an arm around him and drawing him close. 

"You mean, you—just from—" No one had ever gotten off from sucking him before.

"Did you not hear the part where I'm completely mad for you?" Eames pressed his nose into Arthur's hair and breathed in. "Truly, Arthur, I hope someday you will believe a word I say."

Arthur shifted further into Eames's arms and pressed his face against his shoulder. "I believe you," he mumbled, mostly sure he wasn't being an idiot. In any event, he was tired of having a thing. "Me too. You know." Possibly he'd gotten a little rusty at making declarations.

Eames got the gist anyway.

"Sweetheart," he said happily, pressing kisses to the top of Arthur's head, stroking his hands over Arthur's back.

Arthur snuggled closer and shut his eyes.

Eames yawned. "After we've slept, I want pancakes. I came all the way to Queens for you without even stopping for breakfast. Please never doubt my devotion again."

"Okay, pancakes," Arthur murmured drowsily against Eames's shoulder. "But buckwheat. It's better for you." _Somebody_ had to consider Eames's fiber intake. 

Arthur could feel him smile. "Darling, you say the sweetest things."


End file.
